


Covered/Uncovered

by AnguaLupin



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Post-X3, but there was something in there that could have been good, does anyone else remember X3, it was such a crushing disappointment of a movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 18:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguaLupin/pseuds/AnguaLupin
Summary: Raven and Erik, figuring out who they are as the serum wears off.





	Covered/Uncovered

**Author's Note:**

> So I apparently wrote this in 2006, at least according to the timestamp. I discovered it while going through a backup folder and thought, eh, why not, someone out there probably remembers X3 and what a shitshow it was.
> 
> Seriously, the movie was terrible. This does not fix its terribleness. It is a brief window into Mystique and Magneto being dysfunctional together, though, which is pretty much all I wanted out of the original X-Men movies.

She finds him at a chess convention in Ontario, still in hiding. Raven (she is Raven, now, but not for long) is hot; her hands are blue again and she must wear gloves even in the sweltering summer heat. She refuses to think about what she will do when her normal skin (it is still her normal skin, it just went away for a while and now is back) spreads to her face; her body is regaining scales and skin but not yet any ability to change itself.

She corners him in an unused hallway. She knows he will recognize her. She also knows he will not realize the significance of the long sleeves and gloves in Canada’s summer.

 

“You betrayed me,” he says.

“We are even now,” she replies.

They leave together.

 

She is pretty sure that his powers are returning as hers are, but she does not ask and he does not tell. She also becomes confident that he eventually realizes why she keeps hiding her hands, and soon her neck, but he does not mention that, either.

Once they would have shown each other, immediately, reveling in the regain of their identity. But “once” was a long time ago, and things are different now. There is no more illusion that they are partners, that they ever were. Raven finds she misses, not the power of being the great Magneto’s confidante, but the security of his presence at her side. They are not cold to each other, but they are not welcoming, either.

 

When she is first able to shift her hand she feels a rush of excitement that she hadn’t realized she missed. Her first thought is that soon she won’t have to wear clothes; her second is that she will be able to go back outside; and only the third is about what Erik will say. She realizes it doesn’t matter.

Her skin recovers her face and she can no longer hide it, so she doesn’t try. Erik blinks, the first day she walks into the living room with her arms and legs uncovered, but says nothing. This has become a habit for them.

Later: “The world will pay,” Erik says, moving the toaster a good three inches before his power gives out. Mystique says nothing, but she thinks that the world pays without their help, and so do they, and anyway Erik has never shown great aptitude for learning from his mistakes.

 

She thinks about leaving, but doesn’t. Some wounds run too deep, but then, so do some loyalties.


End file.
